"Fritz Leiber - Coming Attraction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

by an old blast, a nuisance in these tall New York buildings. Before it occurred to me that I would be
going out again, I automatically tore a tab from the film strip under my shirt. I developed it just to be
sure. It showed that the total radiation IтАЩd taken that day was still within the safety limit. IтАЩm no phobic
about it, as so many people are these days, but thereтАЩs no point in taking chances.
I flopped down on the daybed and stared at the silent speaker and the dark screen of the video set. As
always, they made me think, somewhat bitterly, of the two great nations of the world. Mutilated by each
other, yet still strong, they were crippled giants poisoning the planet with their respective dreams of an
impossible equality and an impossible success.
I fretfully switched on the speaker. By luck, the newscaster was talking excitedly of the prospects of a
bumper wheat crop, sown by planes across a dust bowl moistened by seeded rains. I listened carefully to
the rest of the program (it was remarkably clear of Russian telejamming), but there was no further news
of interest to me. And, of course, no mention of the moon, though everyone knows that America and
Russia are racing to develop their primary bases into fortresses capable of mutual assault and the
launching of alphabet bombs toward Earth. I myself knew perfectly well that the British electronic
equipment I was helping trade for American wheat was destined for use in spaceships.
I switched off the newscast. It was growing dark, and once again I pictured a tender, frightened face
behind a mask. I hadnтАЩt had a date since England. ItтАЩs exceedingly difficult to become acquainted with a
girl in America, where as little as a smile often can set one of them yelping for the police to say nothing
of the increasingly puritanical morality and the roving gangs that keep most women indoors after dark.
And, naturally, the masks, which are definitely not, as the Soviets claim, a last invention of capitalist
degeneracy, but a sign of great psychological insecurity. The Russians have no masks, but they have
their own signs of stress.
I went to the window and impatiently watched the darkness gather. I was getting very restless. After a
while a ghostly violet cloud appeared to the south. My hair rose. Then I laughed. I had momentarily
fancied it a radiation from the crater of the Hellbomb, though I should instantly have known it was only
the radio-induced glow in the sky over the amusement and residential area south of Inferno.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswij...ten/spaar/Fritz%20Leiber%20-%20Coming%20Attraction.htm (5 of 12)19-2-2006 20:26:39
 COMING ATTRACTION - Fritz Leiber


Promptly at twenty-two hours I stood before the door of my unknown girl friendтАЩs apartment. The
electronic say-who-please said just that. I answered clearly, "Wysten Turner," wondering if sheтАЩd given
my name to the mechanism. She evidently had, for the door opened. I walked into a small empty living
room, my heart pounding a bit.
The room was expensively furnished with the latest pneumatic hassocks and sprawlers. There were some
midgie hooks on the table. The one I picked up was the standard hard-boiled detective story in which
two female murderers go gunning for each other.
The television was on. A masked girl in green was crooning a love song. Her right hand held something
that blurred off into the foreground. I saw the set had a handie, which we havenтАЩt in England as yet, and
curiously thrust my hand into the handie orifice beside the screen. Contrary to my expectations, it was
not like slipping into a pulsing rubber glove, but rather as if the girl on the screen actually held my hand.
A door opened behind me. I jerked out my hand with as guilty a reaction as if IтАЩd been caught peering
through a keyhole.
She stood in the bedroom doorway. I think she was trembling. She was wearing a gray fur coat, white-
speckled, and a gray velvet evening mask with shirred gray lace around the eyes and mouth. Her
fingernails twinkled like silver.
I hadnтАЩt occurred to me that sheтАЩd expect us to go out.
"I should have told you," she said softly. Her mask veered nervously toward the books and the screen
and the roomтАЩs dark corners. "But I canтАЩt possibly talk to you here."